‘Income Inequality is Also Internet Inequality”

The lack of either existent or upcoming competition taught the larger cable companies that it pays, literally, to get lazy and complacent: not only would they refuse to compete with each other, but there was also nothing to fear from any aggressive startups.

The lack of any pressure to improve means Americans are forced to keep overpaying for internet service or give it up altogether. There are estimates that 100 million people in the US — or roughly a third of the population — do not have internet access at home.

It’s not unusual for middle-class families to spent more than $2,100 a year just to get online; poorer families can’t even bother. The price of internet access has also risen faster than wages ever could; since 2006, the price of telephone and internet access has risen by 21%, according to the Wall Street Journal. This is not something that single mothers and struggling families can afford; kids in urban neighborhoods cluster inside and around the local McDonald’s to do their homework by grabbing a ride on the stores’ free Wi-Fi. Imagine four years of doing that every night just to keep up with your peers, much less scoring the kind of grades that are good enough for college.

Heidi Moore has a new column out about the robber barons of the digital age: cable/internet providers who use their influential power in Washington to discourage competition and oversight so that they can continue charging whatever they want for internet access. Think about the number of options you have if you want to have internet access in your home — you likely have a handful of choices, and they’re all charging the same high prices.

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